Award-winning author William Kent Krueger has gained an immense fan base for his Cork O’Connor series. In Ordinary Grace, Krueger looks back to 1961 to tell the story of Frank Drum, a boy on the cusp of manhood. A typical 13-year-old with a strong, loving family, Frank is devastated when a tragedy forces him to face the unthinkable - and to take on a maturity beyond his years.

Iron Lake: Cork O'Connor, Book 1

Anthony Award-winning author William Kent Krueger crafts this riveting tale about a small Minnesota town’s ex-sheriff who is having trouble retiring his badge. Cork O’Connor loses his job after being blamed for a tragedy on the local Anishinaabe Indian reservation. But he must set aside his personal demons when a young boy goes missing on the same day a judge commits suicide—and no one but O’Connor suspects foul play.

The Devil's Bed

When President Clay Dixon's father-in-law - a former vice president - is injured in a farming accident, First Lady Kate Dixon returns to Minnesota to be at his side. Assigned to protect her, Secret Service agent Bo Thorsen soon falls under Kate's spell. He also suspects the accident is part of a trap set for Kate by David Moses, an escaped mental patient who once loved her. What Bo and Moses don't realize is that they're caught in a web of deadly intrigue spun by a seemingly insignificant bureaucratic department within the federal government.

Windigo Island: Cork O'Connor, Book 14

The award-winning author of the best-selling Cork O’Connor series, William Kent Krueger pens novels with pulse-racing suspense. In Windigo Island, the corpse of an Ojibwe girl washes ashore, and locals at the Bad Bluff reservation believe it to be the work of the mythical Windigo. But the dead girl’s friend is also missing, and sheriff-turned-PI Cork O’Connor will brave any danger to bring her home.

Trickster's Point: A Cork O'Connor Mystery, Book 12

New York Times best-selling author William Kent Krueger has won numerous accolades for his books, including the Anthony Award for Best First Novel. In Trickster’s Point, the 12th suspenseful installment in Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series, Cork is framed for the murder of Minnesota’s first Native American governor-elect, Jubal Little. As Cork fights to clear his name and uncover the truth, he discovers that events from his own past may hold the key to the real killer’s identity.

Northwest Angle: A Cork O'Connor Mystery

During a houseboat vacation on the remote Lake of the Woods, a violent gale sweeps through unexpectedly, stranding Cork and his daughter, Jenny, on a devastated island where the wind has ushered in a force far darker and more deadly than any storm. Amid the wreckage, Cork and Jenny discover an old trapper’s cabin where they find the body of a teenage girl. She wasn’t killed by the storm, however; she’d been bound and tortured before she died. And from outside comes the soft wail of an infant, abandoned in the brush....

Boundary Waters

Drawing strong comparisons to the work of James Lee Burke and Tony Hillerman, William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor mysteries never fail to please fans. Here Cork joins the search for a country-western singer who has disappeared in the wilderness along the American/Canadian border.

Vermilion Drift: A Cork O'Connor Mystery

His first day on the job, Cork stumbles across a secret room with the remains of six murder victims inside. Five appear to be nearly half a century old - connected to what the media had dubbed “The Vanishings,” a series of unsolved disappearances in the summer of 1964, when Cork’s father was sheriff in Tamarack County. But the sixth has been dead less than a week. What’s worse, two of the bodies - including the most recent victim - were killed using Cork’s own gun, one handed down to him from his father.

Purgatory Ridge: A Cork O'Connor Mystery, Book 3

William Kent Krueger is the award-winning author of the popular Cork O’Connor mysteries. In Purgatory Ridge, Krueger crafts a riveting tale which has ex-sheriff O’Connor on the case after a heated town debate turns deadly. The local Anishinaabe Indian tribe is furious to discover that Karl Lindstrom’s lumber mill is after a grove of trees sacred to tribal lore. So when the mill gets bombed, killing a man, the tribe is blamed. But O’Connor has a different theory.

Tamarack County: Cork O'Connor, Book 13

William Kent Krueger is a New York Times best-selling author whose popular Cork O’Connor mysteries display an "intimate knowledge of Minnesota’s northern reaches and respect for Native American life" (Publishers Weekly). In Tamarack County, former sheriff Cork O'Connor investigates the disappearance of a retired judge’s wife - and discovers the bloody aftermath of a 20-year-old crime.

Whistling Past the Graveyard

In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old spitfire Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother's Mississippi home. Starla hasn't seen her momma since she was three - that's when Lulu left for Nashville to become a famous singer. If she can get to Nashville and find her momma, then all that she promised will come true: Lulu will be a star. Daddy will come to live in Nashville, too. And her family will be whole and perfect.

Thunder Bay: A Cork O'Connor Mystery #7

The promise, as I remember it, happened this way. Happy and content in his hometown of Aurora, Minnesota, Cork O'Connor has left his badge behind and is ready for a life of relative peace, setting up shop as a private investigator. But his newfound state of calm is soon interrupted when Henry Meloux, the Ojibwe medicine man and Cork's spiritual adviser, makes a request: Will Cork find the son that Henry fathered long ago?

The Nightingale

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author comes Kristin Hannah’s next novel. It is an epic love story and family drama set at the dawn of World War II. She is the author of twenty-one novels. Her previous novels include Home Front, Night Road, Firefly Lane, Fly Away, and Winter Garden.

Heaven's Keep: A Cork O'Connor Mystery

Every married couple knows you don't go to bed angry. The corollary, Cork O'Connor realizes, is that you also don't say goodbye when you're mad. When the charter plane Jo O'Connor is on crashes over the mountains in Wyoming in an early winter storm, Cork deeply regrets the heated argument he had with his wife just before she left. An intense search is launched, but bad weather and the steep terrain hinder the efforts and soon the search is abandoned.

Red Knife: Cork O'Connor, Book 8

When the daughter of a powerful businessman dies as a result of her meth addiction, her father, strong-willed and brutal Buck Reinhardt, vows revenge. His target is the Red Boyz, a gang of Ojibwe youths accused of supplying the girl's fatal drug dose. When the head of the Red Boyz and his wife are murdered in a way that suggests execution, the Ojibwe gang mobilizes, and the citizens of Tamarack County brace themselves for war, white against red.

A Man Called Ove

Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon - the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him "the bitter neighbor from hell". But behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness.

Blood Hollow

After 17-year-old Charlotte Kane, the beautiful, brilliant, and brooding daughter of a rich widower, disappears on a drunken New Years' Eve snowmobile ride, a raging blizzard soon snuffs out all search efforts. When her body is found during the spring thaw four months later, preliminary evidence implicates her ex-boyfriend: Ojibwe bad-boy Solemn Winter Moon. But then a second Charlotte Kane turns up dead, and Cork isn't sure of anything any more.

Norwegian by Night

Sheldon Horowitz - 82 years old, impatient, and unreasonable - is staying with his granddaughter's family in Norway when he disappears with a stranger's child. Sheldon is an ex-Marine, and he feels responsible for his son's death in Vietnam. Recently widowed and bereft, he talks to the ghosts of his past constantly. To Norway's cops, Sheldon is just an old man who is coming undone at the end of a long and hard life. But Sheldon is clear in his own mind.

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry

The irascible A. J. Fikry, owner of Island Books - the only bookstore on Alice Island - has already lost his wife. Now his most prized possession, a rare book, has been stolen from right under his nose in the most embarrassing of circumstances. The store itself, it seems, will be next to go. One night upon closing, he discovers a toddler in his children’s section with a note from her mother pinned to her Elmo doll: I want Maya to grow up in a place with books and among people who care about such kinds of things. I love her very much, but I can no longer take care of her.

The Shock of the Fall

While on vacation with their parents, Matthew Homes and his older brother snuck out in the middle of the night. Only Matthew came home safely. Ten years later, Matthew tells us, he has found a way to bring his brother back... What begins as the story of a lost boy turns into a story of a brave man yearning to understand what happened that night, in the years since, and to his very person.

Secrets of a Charmed Life

Current day, Oxford, England. Young American scholar Kendra Van Zant, eager to pursue her vision of a perfect life, interviews Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets about the war that she has kept for decades...beginning with who she really is. What Kendra receives from Isabel is both a gift and a burden--one that will test her convictions and her heart.

Mercy Falls

Best-selling author William Kent Krueger thrills millions with this Anthony Award-winning entry in his compelling series that already includes Anthony Award winners Iron Lake and Blood Hollow. Still troubled by an ambush that leaves his deputy lingering near death, Sheriff Cork O'Conner must investigate the mutilation murder of a Chicago businessman. Soon Cork finds himself distracted by the lovely female shadowing him and the handsome man stalking his wife.

An anthology of mystery stories set in Minnesota and written by Minnesota authors. All of the mysteries have at least one element in common: each tale takes place at a fictional, but perhaps hauntingly familiar, Minnesota resort.

Copper River

Part Irish, part Native-American, Sheriff Cork O'Connor serves the remote territory of Tamarack County, Minnesota. But big trouble is brewing: a powerful man believes O'Connor killed his son. Now there's a price on the sheriff's head and a bullet in his leg. He finds refuge with his cousin, Jewell, and her teenage son, Ren, in their tiny Michigan town. But when Ren and his friends are threatened, O'Connor must risk his cover to find out why.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry: A Novel

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is 77 years old and crazy, standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus crazy. She is also Elsa's best and only friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother's stories, in the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

Publisher's Summary

Award-winning author William Kent Krueger has gained an immense fan base for his Cork O’Connor series. In Ordinary Grace, Krueger looks back to 1961 to tell the story of Frank Drum, a boy on the cusp of manhood. A typical 13-year-old with a strong, loving family, Frank is devastated when a tragedy forces him to face the unthinkable - and to take on a maturity beyond his years.

This book is beautiful. Just brilliant. It's a mystery that takes place in Minnesota in 1961 with classic literature; very reminiscent of To Kill A Mockingbird. So much so that I found myself listening to this story in black and white.

A beautiful tale with a 'morals in an immoral world' theme. One of the main characters is a wonderful peaceful father who has to guide his children through the animalistic ways of mankind. The family in this book are that of the town's minister's which lends itself to discussions of religion.

Once started I was completely immersed in each member of this family and all the people that they come in contact with. I plowed through this for I could NOT put this down. Just when I thought I saw a direction this was going - I found myself surprised.

I have never read this author before. If you have, be very careful to read the synopsis carefully for this is a stand alone book. I would be thrilled if this would become a series book though.

Rich Orlow is such an enhancement to this story by giving every character an identity. He does the voice of the deaf, women, men, children, Indians, aristocrats to perfection. What a talent.

The coming of age can certainly make a boy of 13 grow up fast. Frank Drum was that boy. He definitely has a story to tell.

There are many participant's in this story and each of them have their own story to tell. These character's are very well developed. The reader will come to know each one as an individual. Listen closely because each one of them are important in contributing to the coming of age of Frank Drum.

I definitely encourage other's to purchase this book. The plot is very well developed. The characters are interesting people and the author, William Kent Krueger, wrote about them so that the listener will want to continue reading to the very last page. The narrator, Rich Orlow, is excellent. He makes the character's come alive. He makes listening to, Ordinary Grace, a pleasure and an easy listen.

The mystery of who committed the murders that summer in Breman, a small town where everyone knows everyone else, is difficult to understand. Why would anyone want to end the life of another?

Always remember that the dead are never far from us, just one single breath will take us to them.

After a series of great murder mysteries, staring Cork O'Conner, Kruger has come up with a genius of a stand alone coming of age, murder mystery, and trestles on the "awful grace of God". Our of the best books that I've ever read.

Frank is telling his story some forty years after the actual events that took place during his thirteenth year. In 1961, small town Minnesota, the summer is hot, the people know everything about everyone, and life is good. But this all changes when a young boy is killed while playing on the train tracks. Frank , and his stuttering younger brother, speculate about this tragedy. Their father is the town's Methodist minister, and folks look to him to answer the preverbal question of "Why would God let this happen?".

But that was just the beginning of this momentous summer for Frank, his family, and this small town. There will be three more deaths. An itinerant man is found amongst the weeds, there is a suicide, and finally a murder. Everyone in the town is affected by these tragedies in some way---bringing out the best and the worst in people.

Kruger's writing is filled with wonderful descriptive phrases. His characters will touch your heart in ways that will be difficult to put away after you've finished this book. His specific and thoughtful discussions of God's grace as seen through Frank's eyes will keep you wondering about your own faith. Simply a five, no five times five star read. This book has something for every reader to enjoy!!

This book works on many levels. It is a mystery story, you won't want to put it down. Most of all Ordinary Grace is an extraordinary work of fiction. It is a coming of age story with themes of family, sorrow, justice, resiliency, forgiveness, and perhaps most of all faith.

If you like any one book of any one of the following authors I think you will like this book: John Irving, Kent Haruf, Leif Enger, Marilynne Robinson, David James Duncan.

Also, I really appreciate when audible adds the author interview after the reading, this one was interesting.

I cannot find the words to express the contemplative quiet this novel invoked in me. As an atheist I usually do not care for themes of faith and especially preaching. This book discusses life's questions against the backdrop of a young man and his family dynamics. However, the story is nicely woven and stands on its own regardless of the deeper thoughts.

“It was a summer in which death, in visitation, assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder. I still spend a lot of time thinking about the events of that summer. About the terrible price of wisdom. The awful grace of God.”

Frank Drum begins his story, looking back over forty years to this fateful summer in 1961 when he was 13 yrs. old. The story is immediately familiar and the nostalgia consuming. Krueger writes poetically, creating an idyllic summer so vividly the years tick backwards. For many it will recall that well-known coming of age through tragedy, Stephen King's The Body (movie: Stand By Me). There are similarities, but Krueger's story is a murder mystery tucked into a gentle and sweet tale, focused on family, small town secrets, and spiritual struggles, more than the physical threats of big brothers, dead bodies, and junk-yard dogs.

In addition to being a New York Times Bestseller, Ordinary Grace recently won the 2014 Edgar Award For Best Novel, the 2014 Dilys Award, and has been selected as a *School Library Journal Best Book Of 2013. I'm not familiar with the author's Cork O'Connor series and can't speak to any comparison, but I found this book completely charming and captivating. Krueger's ability to create a soothing kindness through his choice of words, even in the midst of violence, death, and some (mild) sexual encounters, is remarkable. The novel deals with a multitude of *delicate* issues with frankness and compassion instead of sensationalism. Moments like the Reverend's sermon after a death (I won't spoil it by divulging the victim) are healing balms, so beautifully written they are all the *church* you could hope for.

There are some stereotypes and clichés, some sentimentality, but it all seems fresh and original, they are so well used, and so much a part of the period. You may see the ending coming, may figure out the murderer, may even question little brother Jake's keen insight, but any concerns are lost in the overall beauty and grace of this novel. It may not be the block buster everyone is talking about, but for me it was a pure pleasure reading this novel; one of my favorites of 2014.

**The School Library Journal is a monthly magazine with articles and reviews for school librarians, media specialists, and public librarians who work with young people. They have this book listed as an "Adult Books 4 Teens." I would say use your own discretion.

STORY (historical fiction) - This story reminds me of the movie "Stand By Me." It is set in a small town in Minnesota in the early sixties and is told by Frank who, now grown, is looking back on one particular summer of his youth which was plagued with numerous tragedies. The book is very character-driven, and by the end you will know each character intimately. In small town USA everyone knows everyone's business and , when tragedies strikes, it affects the whole town. Ordinary Grace is about how this town deals with sadness and the mysteries surrounding that sadness. It is a coming-of-age story with elements of personal growth, faith, family, death, forgiveness......life.

I might have rated the book a 5, but it was a little slow getting started, in my opinion. There are two very touching parts of the story, and it's hard to describe them without giving away part of the mystery. Hints: Nathan gives a very touching sermon after someone's death. The best part of the book is the "Ordinary Grace," which is more like an Amazing Grace.

PERFORMANCE - The narrator is male. He had a pleasant voice and did a good job distinguishing between the different characters.

OVERALL - Only mild references to sex and pregnancy, and I don't recall any foul language. The book stands on its own. The story is interesting and emotional, but it's not so intricate that you have to pay close attention for fear of missing something. Recommended for all mature listeners, male or female.

A triple mystery and a tragedy that surround a Minnesota family in 1961. A Methodist minister, a Mother who does her best to give her children every opportunity, a beautiful young Daughter getting ready to set off on her own and two young Brothers who are best buddies and full of angst. They live in a small town where everyone knows everyone's business and the mysterious death of a young boy sets all in motion.

This story is a mind provoking reminder of how everything that happens shapes and changes our lives no matter how good or bad, small or large...... Some occurrences change us drastically over night, those life altering changes that none of us, fortunately/unfortunately, are immune too.

The author and narrator made this a wonderful listening experience. This was the first Krueger book I have listened to and it was a touching, rich, beautifully written story. Wonderful to see this story through the eyes of a young man on the verge of manhood and all of the revelations that come along with that metamorphosis.

Rich Orlow does a wonderful job with all the voices of a wide assortment of characters. His pace and timing are right on. One of the better ones in my opinion and I will look for him in other works.

A great mystery. All things have their time: birth, death and rebirth.

If you could sum up Ordinary Grace in three words, what would they be?

Transformative, gracious and enlightened.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The stuttering younger brother with his down to earth honesty and sensibility.

Which scene was your favorite?

The fathers sermon after the death of his daughter.

Any additional comments?

The reader did a magnificent job distinguishing the different characters and lending honesty to the description of people in distress and confusion without ever over dramatizing any one person or event. Well done.

This remarkable coming of age story is told by 13 year-old Frank Drum. The story moves at a steady and consistent pace. It held my attention until the very end. The story reminded me of "To Kill A Mockingbird" in many ways as it deals with life issues which are impacted by issues of morality or immorality. Frank's father is the town's Preacher so the story has teaching moments throughout. The overall story has a bit of racism, some mental health issues, and religious activities. My favorite scenes were where Frank would hang around corners eavesdropping on adult conversations. The story is well written and well narrated. I recommend.

Yes I would happily recommend this novel. It's extremely well written with good quality characterisations that hold your interest and really make you care about what happens to each of them.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Ordinary Grace?

The over-whelming impact on the Drum family of the various incidents that unfold. Tremendous writing.

What about Rich Orlow’s performance did you like?

Sensitively read and nothing 'over the top' which would have ruined the delicate balance of this novel

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The burden put onto the father of the Drum family. I'm not a believer in the religious sense and at times it could have been so easy to feel an edge of impatience taking over, but it's so well written that finally I just couldn't fail to be moved by his stoicism.

Any additional comments?

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this novel. The descriptive passages devoted to both the locations, era and characters made it a memorable experience. There are no particularly gripping moments or shocking revelations here but taken as a 'whole' this is a murder mystery that will not fail to grip you and will stay with you long after you've finished it. For me, that's the test of a good book.

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